The Benefits of Digital vs. Physical Media Collection

You are tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek Hello and welcome to Altered Geek I'm your

host Steve Megatron Phillips and joining me is

again this week is The one the only the one true

Birdman MikeTheBirdman .ofThisWeekendGeek .net.

I don't know where I was going with that, but

I bet you thought it was somewhere blasphemous,

but it's not. So you can, you know, be cool with

me now. The only, the verified, oh wait. I wish.

Okay, there is a guy on Twitter I went to school

with. He has less than 300 people and he's verified

on Twitter. I know that irritates the crap out

of me. I have people I know or that work with

that have less followers than I do and I'm like,

why don't I have it yet? It's like, and I've

submitted the thing like eight times and I'm

like, I work in media, like literally I work

in media. I not only have a legit job in media,

but I also have the podcast network. So like,

why am I not getting it? But I'm willing to say,

look, man, they've suspended their verified though.

They've suspended the individual verified submissions.

Really? Yeah. As of like two days ago. Oh, well,

you know what? Someday someday they'll notice

me, man. Someday, man. And I'll get that little

blue check mark and I'll be like, I'm cooler

than the rest of you mofos. But anyway, this

is Altered Geek. So yeah, in this episode of

Altered Geek, we thought we would talk about,

you know, collector's first world problems. So

this is yet another thing that I've pitched towards

Steve. So, okay. So as I've talked about on Altered

Geek before in the past, I've recently got this

massive geek boner for Power Rangers recently.

And recently Boom Studios put out this awesome

event, came out just at the last week of March.

The next issue is hitting I think either this

week or next week, depending on when this alter

geek comes out. And it's Mighty Morphin Power

Rangers Shattered Grid. If you don't know what

that is, it's this huge, most of the year event

concludes in August. And basically there's this

bad guy who's an alternate version of Tommy Oliver

called Lord Drakken. And he's going across all

the Power Ranger timelines and he's kicking the

crap out of every team imaginable. He's even

killed Rangers, even some very big names. I don't

want to say who, because it gives away a lot

of the punch of the first issue, but it's big.

So - And he's a dick. Yeah, and he's mega douche.

So I'm like, oh my god. Did you did you watch

the video of it? Oh God, did I ever multiple

times? I wish that they would make that a series

and just make it an original like original like

property thing of Power Rangers and then that

would be Spectacular because then they could

create everything from scratch and yet it would

be all -american If they did that as a go fund

me BAM. Here you go. Yep Merry Christmas. Even

let's say if they had like a $5 ,000 reward tier,

you get to be a ranger century on set, done.

Like that would be cool. So anyway, so with this,

I called around to my local comic book shops

trying to find a copy of this book. And fortunately,

I found one of my old hometown of Orangeville,

Ontario, and it was in a black seal poly bag.

Cool. So that cost me my seven bucks, paid it,

whatever. I now have it in my possession. There's

like seven or eight different variant covers

to this thing, neato. I then realized I could

have just bought this comic digitally and saved

myself the trouble. There's a point dog. So I

realized I've got a first world collector problem.

So I'm cleaning my studio with my wife and my

friends, because I am really anal. about how

clean my studio is and how organized everything

is. I've got a little bit of OCD going on there.

And I've got all these comic books, Steve. I

have one, two, three, four, five, like eight

different comic boxes. Those big long white boxes

just full of comics. It's My Little Pony, Transformers,

Ghostbusters, Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder,

Superman. Green Lantern, et cetera, et cetera.

It's a bunch of different series. And I'm realizing,

shit, I'm running out of room, guys. Now, I recently

have become confined to a wheelchair with the

chance of getting a prosthetic as soon as I get

back to physio. That's a whole different story.

But regardless for now, I'm in a wheelchair.

I'm rocking this steel pony. So that means, I

now have something that's known as a turning

radius, not just because my ass is huge, but

because now I literally have wheels like Professor

X. So I'm in my studio or I'm looking into my

studio rather from the hallway and I see all

these comic boxes and I'm thinking, I can't get

at my shelves. Those things are, my comic boxes

are on the floor. I can't reach down. safely

in my wheelchair to get at them, because there's

a chance I could fall out. Because the way that

my wheelchair is balanced, it's just, it's the

thing about being handicapped, you don't really

kind of realize you have to consider balance

in a lot of things now. And just how front forward

you're sitting, especially how your wheelchair

is fitted for you. But that's, that's handicap

problem. That ain't collector problem. Collector

problem is, this stuff takes up so much damn

space. So I thought back, hey, wait a second.

I did kind of solve this problem already. I could

just buy my comics digitally. Man, I could save

myself a lot of time and money and purchases

in the cloud never really go away. I mean, sure

if the company fold, but what are the odds of

that? Small, it's possible. But as long as I

have a device or have the account, it will always

be there. Unlike with comic books, if I say,

take my amazing fantasy number 15 and decide

to kick it across the room. It's trashed. It's

gone with a digital comic. What am I gonna do?

I can scribble on the iPad, but it's not gonna

destroy the comic. So maybe I can solve my first

world problem by decluttering, by downsizing

what I have. And it just came to me as this amazing

revelation thinking, man, I can get rid of a

lot of crap if I need to. But it's so hard because

comics to me are the one thing they're either

really easy to move or they're really hard to

move if you wanna sell them. For example, I was

looking through old press kits and I found a

Rick and Morty number one issue to their comic

book series. I found a variant cover, the four

grails. for color grail, it's for CG or for CG

or whatever. Some of that, it's a variant company.

Evidently, it's kind of rare. I've seen it go

for like 75 bucks. By the way, it's still for

sale if anybody wants it. Sorry, cheap plug.

But anyway, I got to realizing I have all this

crap I'm just holding onto just because comic

books I was always told from a young age, hold

on to. but they never retain their value anymore.

Well, they haven't since the 90s, honestly. In

the 90s, they pumped them out because that was

the saying of, you know, hold onto your comics,

even though everything from the 90s onward is

worth nothing. Yeah, I can think of maybe five

or six books that are worth anything post 2000.

And the biggest one among that is The Walking

Dead because it was such a low print run. Actually,

funny story about that. I had one of those Walking

Dead number ones when it first came out. Where

is it now? Beats the hell out of me. Lost it

during a move. That's my luck. But yeah. I got

the thinking about that. I mean, I remember when

Marvel and DC and Image would put all these different

variant covers out or there'd be different holographic

Spider -Man on a textured thing on the hell.

One of my favorite covers is Venom Number One.

I think it came out like 1993. It's just this

red holographic foil cover with this black snarling

venom. Or there's this Punisher Warzone that

has this cardboard cutout that's just full of

bullet holes. And it's one of the coolest comic

covers I've ever seen. I would actually go back

and get that if I could. Or there's another one

where it's Wolverine and he's got his claws out.

You can see the Hulk's reflection in them and

it's that hollow foil silver stuff like that.

And that's from like the What If series of comics.

There were just. Comics are so hard for me to

get rid of. And though I just donated a bunch

of graphic novels because, oh, it's graphic novels,

who cares? And yet I found out I sold a couple

of my graphic novels to make some money for my

wheelchair fund. Turns out I could have sold

those for a crap ton more. And I totally got

taken advantage of. Somebody I knew got a deal.

I'm not mad about it. I'm like, well, a heads

up would have been nice, but whatever. I've noticed

that when I've sold comics in the past is like

I knew I was getting taken to the cleaners, but

I needed the money then Whereas like now when

I've I've sold because I had it as I've mentioned

in a previous episode I've sold a ton of my my

collectibles. I literally have Almost nothing

left as far as like physical toys I have a few

select figures like I have a couple Lego creations.

I have like a Enterprise a model. I have a couple

of Captain Kirk's I have like a Batman figure

that I'm still trying to get rid of and then

I've got the masterpiece Optimus Primal Beast

Wars figure and that's that's about it and then

I've got about 50 comics that I'm probably gonna

offload soon to which are I have like the the

rebirth Batman issue zero a couple variants.

I have the about three different variant covers

of the TMNT from IDW Which have the GCRN quote

on the top of them. Oh That's cool. I didn't

even know that yeah, we hit we were quoted from

the pull bag on the on the top of the issues

and I was like boom bottom because it said geek

cast radio at the top I was like I'm keeping

those just because it's an awesome landmark.

And then there's, I have probably, I think the

rest of them are like Transformers comics from

like Dreamwave and some IDW stuff, so I'm going

to be offloading those soon, but really I don't

expect to make anything off the rest of the stuff

that I have. Yeah, I mean most of the stuff I

kept in terms of graphic novels I kept all my

Dreamwave Transformers stuff. I have all the

Dreamwave comics for Transformers in pretty much

mint shape and I have almost every variant cover

they ever did. Do you know how much that is?

Probably not much. You know, it's tragic that

Dreamwave folded. I found their art and their

story to be infinitely better than what we're

getting on IDW just from what I've noticed. Oh,

absolutely. I think the artwork was head and

shoulders above IDW, but IDW I think has more

interesting stories. I would have liked to have

seen where the Dreamwave stories would have concluded.

I know where they were headed and they were headed

to Unicron, but I loved how they broke Ultra

Magnus out of his armor and he had like the white

prime. You know hit the brother of prime type

thing and then you had a lot of the you know,

the war within stuff you had a lot of All these

different storylines you had the armada like

no bastards Yeah, I mean there was there was

all kinds of awesome. I mean they were gonna

do a Beast Wars line, too and They were heading

all different directions and I was loving the

art on everything and - It was so bright. It

was so vibrant. It was so vibrant. And then you

had, they were very, they weren't as detailed

as IDW, but they looked more like they fit with

the animated series. Yeah, exactly. They felt

very much alive. The IDW stuff, it just, it felt

so dull and I could never connect with it. Although

I will say the IDW stuff is infinitely better

than the Michael Bay stuff, but - even then I

didn't I didn't I tried it and then I just couldn't

get into it and so I ended up bailing early on

in the IDW runs I do have the Beast Wars issues

those I will not get rid of from IDW because

it's the only Beast Wars comics that exist so

those I won't get rid of but still I yeah it

was it was sad to see it go. I still have a majority

of my Dreamwave comics though, and they're in

pristine condition, read once and then locked

away. Yep, and that's, I guess that's the thing.

With my digital comics, I'm more likely to go

back and read them, because I've bought in the

first two trade paperbacks, which is weird to

say. The first two trades of the Boom Power Rangers

comics, I'm probably gonna get the rest as I

get some more money, as I sell some more of my

stuff. And I don't know, I don't see a problem

with selling stuff to get more digital. And I'm

getting like, for example, this is such a problem

I'm having right now. I moved to my current place

about 14, 15 months ago, and I'm just realizing

I'm missing stuff. I'm missing boxes of video

games. I'm missing boxes of toys. I'm missing

boxes of movies. So for now, I am determined.

I am only buying stuff digital because you know

what? If it's in the cloud, I can never lose

it. Yep. And that's the other thing too is I

used to own like 1400 movies or somewhere in

that range. And it got to the point where we

just never watched them. We would watch the same

like 50 movies over and over. And so mostly it

was me because I just enjoyed the movies enough

to do that. my wife would never remember any

of the movies except for the ones that I wanted

to watch because I would watch them so much.

So we actually eventually started offloading

some of them and then we started getting irritated

with the level of just obscenities in the stuff

we were watching just because it was getting

like overtly so like it wasn't like the 80s or

the 90s where like you'd catch a couple of like

people swearing or you know a couple of like

indecent moments uh and nowadays like it's just

it's rampant and everything and so it just got

too hard to watch everything uh after a while

you're not going pure flicks on me are you oh

we have pure flicks but i i still watch them

i'm sorry those movies are terrible every single

one of them oh some of them There's some good

ones in there and there's some bad ones. It depends.

We mostly cancelled Netflix because we pretty

much watched everything we wanted to watch and

there really wasn't that much to it that we hadn't

seen. And then we have Hulu when we watch a lot

of the old 90s TV shows. Just because we enjoy

a lot of that stuff. goes through phases of different

programming. But at the same time, I have a lot

of stuff digitally of stuff that we used to own

on external drives. We still occasionally go

back and watch some of that stuff. But for the

most part, it got to be too much. I've got most

of my TV series stuff like... Dumped digitally

that I own and Sold the sold off the DVDs just

because I didn't want them anymore like they

were just taking up space I Had a whole file

cabinet just full of my specific TV shows and

DVDs that I watched I have a few movies that

are blue -gray that I won't part with mostly

because they're like truck films, but Yeah, I

just I just don't have the space for any of that

crap anymore Yeah, the only thing I'm really

collecting right now is just the Power Ranger

stuff on DVD because I Missed out on the Ranger

helmet a couple of years ago So, yeah, sorry

for laughing at the pure flicks thing that is

just always been the punchline between me and

my friends for years But hey, whatever floats

your boat man party and party on, more power

to you. But yeah, I don't know, just kind of

downsizing. It's been a thing. And like I said,

some people view games as a service. You don't

really own your media. Yeah, I get that. But

technically, if you read or you look at the beginning

of any of your films or your games or your operating

system, you technically don't own any of it anyway.

Yeah, that's true. I mean... Even nowadays, it's

getting hard for me to justify buying these big

collector's editions of games. Like, sure, I

like the statue or the mech hat or whatever,

whatever gimmick comes with it. The most useful

collector's edition I've ever gotten, I've gotten

two useful collector's editions and they're both

from the same series. Call of Duty Modern Warfare

2 with the night vision goggles. Lowers are surprisingly

useful during power outages because I can see

in the dark and Blair can't. And the Call of

Duty juggernaut mini fridge from Black Ops 3

keeps my insulin nice and cold so I don't die.

So it kind of works out in the end. All things

considered, but I don't know. I mean, I like

the convenience of having my movies and games

in the cloud. Hell, you should see my iTunes

account. I own all seven seasons of Game of Thrones.

I own like 50 movies on like iTunes. And it's

just because I use all those digital codes I

get with the Blu -rays. And I'm starting to think,

well, I'm just gonna put it on my Plex server

anyway. What's the point of buying it? if I'm

just gonna stream it or just do whatever. I'm

literally getting to that point where I think

I may become a digital, I may be going green

by going digital only. I mean, I'd rather spend

150 bucks on a hard drive and be able to fill

that with media for a couple of years than have

all these blue rays and lug them around. You

know what I mean? Yeah, and that's what we were

doing. Like we had like seven totes of just DVDs.

And it just it got to be ridiculous. And then

a majority of them, like some of them, we'd even

chucked the the the CD cases and we'd bought

like these sleeves to put them in in these boxes.

And then eventually, because, you know. some

of the stores won't take them without that stuff

so I just I gave them away to family and I was

like here take them whatever. Majority of the

stuff we actually turned in and sold at this

place called Disc Replay in the U .S. and I actually

bought my 27 inch monitor out of most of it plus

a kindle fire and a digital water camera so.

Nice. So yeah it went to good use but I think

I still have like 30 bucks of credit in their

store but But yeah, I mean it got to be like

this point of just I'm just done with with collecting

things Like it's I don't like I don't even buy

like toys anymore. I just download the picture

and I'm like, hey, I got it See the only thing

I want Truthfully is I want some Power Rangers

stuff I've got my wife for my for our anniversary.

She got a hell of a steal on this She got me

a Red Ranger legacy helmet, a legacy blade blaster,

a legacy wrist communicator, and I'm still waiting

on a legacy red morpher. She got that for a hundred

bucks. I got everything minus my dragon dagger

back that I sold for my wheelchair for like less

than 5 % of what I paid for. You know what I'm

trying to say. Yeah, basically I got it all back

for next to nothing. Which is good. You can't

beat that. And you know what? I'm even looking

at the big games that are coming out now. Like

God of War just came out. There's going to be

a Collector's Edition for Black Ops this year,

I'm sure, for Call of Duty. I don't even know

what the big video games are this year, but you

know what? I just want the Digital Collector's

Edition because I get all the advantages anyway.

I want the season's pass. I want the digital

content. Having the statue, it's just one more

thing to dust now. And I never thought I'd be

that guy. To be honest, I would love nothing

more than to get a version of my ship in Star

Trek Online. for my desk because they 3D print

them now. But they're insanely expensive, which

is the only reason I won't do it, which is why

I have this Hot Wheels like six or seven inch

Enterprise A model instead of the custom ship

I would like that's from my in -game version

of my ship. But I do have a majority of these

Star Trek com badges at this point. that I've

been obtaining. I still have the original communicator,

like flip communicator from the original series

from like the Playmates line from the 90s. It

doesn't work anymore. The little metal tab in

the inside of the battery pack snapped off years

ago. I was a little sad about that. I was like,

man, I wonder if I could fix that, but. You could,

but it's an expensive repair or. It's an easy

repair if you know what you're doing. Yeah. I

think I could fix it like based on where it snapped

off. Like I have a feeling I could fix it. It's

just a matter of making it happen. But you know

what? You should reach out to a guy. And I want

to plug this guy. Cause I think he's a fantastic

YouTuber. His name's Michael and his wife, Melinda.

They run a channel called retro blasting. They

do some fantastic. toy restoration videos. And

if anybody could help you put together or how

to fix this thing or resurrect it, it would be

those guys. And Michael's a huge Star Trek fan

too. Like he did an awesome video series on all

the Star Trek toys for Rathcon and search for

Spock like two years ago. And he does some amazingly,

some amazing vintage Star Wars stuff too. Pretty

cool. You should check them out. It's retro blasting

on YouTube. Cannot recommend those guys enough.

Tell them Birdman sent you. Will do, will do.

But yeah, I'll check that out later. But yeah,

I have that. I have like the TNG, the Voyager,

the original series like Wrath of Khan ones.

I have those. I have the... Captain pin that

goes on the Wrath of Khan uniform I also have

the Star Trek Online pin and the Future Imperfect

pin For the for the Khan badges and then the

only other thing I really want my arsenal and

I'll talk about this more on Future Imperfect,

but is the the uniform of my character from Star

Trek Online So But other than that, like I really

don't care to collect all that much of anything

anymore. I think if I had to pick anything, I'll

basically I want props from stuff like I love

role play stuff. Yep. Like from Star Trek, if

you got me a first contact phaser rifle, that'd

be cool. But we can talk about that in a future.

Perfect. Yep. So I don't know. What do you guys

think in the listener land of of offloading,

you know, going from your collector's first world

problems and just offloading all your digital

or offloading your physical content for digital

content and trading in it. I know we've kind

of talked about it a little bit in the past,

but it was a little bit different than this kind

of conversation. So just hope that you guys find

something interesting in there to relate as far

as. Kind of discovering you've you've hit this

point in your life where you're like, I don't

need the clutter Yeah, I've just become Grumpy

old man bird man, and he don't need none of that

crap get off my lawn. Yep, pretty much so You

can interact with us by emailing feedback at

alter geek comm or you can get a hold of me on

Twitter at SCP 21 and yourself sir You can find

me where you can find all good shampoo products

at Birdman Dodd. It's gonna be squeaky clean.

That's right. So until next time, get altered,

get geeky with the Altered Geeks. And spayin'

new to your pets.